Fashion, darling. Some of us have an eye for it, some of us really don’t, but we all have to buy clothes once in a while. Yet some people are so good at spotting trends and fashions that they buy clothes for a living. Meet the fashion buyer.

“About a quarter of my job is travelling,” says Emma Browne, a senior buying manager for Tesco. “We visit New York, Tokyo and London on shopping trips to find out what the key items of the season are and to see how people shop.”

So far, so glamorous. But it’s one thing being able to shop (a skill much of the population seems to possess, especially in town centres on a Saturday), and quite another to know what other people will buy.

“There are lots of elements you have to get right,” Browne says. “We work with the design team and suppliers to put together a range. We take inspiration from the catwalk and from the key items of the season. You’ve got to know what these key items are and then translate them into the right fabric, shape and price.”

Browne started in the industry as a buyer’s clerk at Etam in 1983 after leaving school at 16 to take a one-year course at London College of Fashion, which taught her the background of the business and retail and display. But it’s common now for people to start out with a degree. Christina Piggott, a buyer’s assistant, began working at TKMaxx last July, fresh from Kent Institute of Art and Design with a degree in fashion promotion.

“I’m very much supporting and shadowing the buyers. My job can be anything from going out to appointments with vendors to doing admin in the office,” she says. “My next step, hopefully, is to become an assistant buyer — I think mine is a typical route into the industry.”

So, do you have to be a slave to fashion to be good at it? “I buy in to the season’s key items, although I won’t be first,” Browne says. “It’s all about finding the winning items and knowing your customers. There’s nothing better than seeing people on the street wearing your stuff.”

Salaries can range from about £12,000 for junior administrative roles to £50,000 for senior buying jobs.

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